Black-and-white Warbler and White-eyed Vireo
This morning – a cloudy, breezy, and very warm day – held the songs of two birds I usually hear much earlier in the spring or even late winter. A Black-and-white Warbler sang in a tangled area of shrubs and trees near the entrance to our subdivision – not an area where I would usually expect to find one. But its high, “squeaky-wheel” song was clear and sweet. In most years, Black-and-white Warblers are one of the first migrant birds to return or pass through the woods here, and usually I can count on hearing and seeing several – but this is the first and only one I’ve heard so far this season.
And in the old field near the highway, a White-eyed Vireo sang a crisp, percussive chick-a-perioo-chick! from somewhere hidden in a dense privet thicket. The traffic sounds from the highway were loud, and I could find few other birds in the field – an Eastern Towhee, Northern Mockingbird, Northern Cardinal, one Ruby-crowned Kinglet and a Brown Thrasher singing in a chinaberry tree. A White-throated Sparrow whistled a sweet, long, full song.